Jan 10
One of our customers, Jeremy Fisher, brought in his classic Volkswagen Squareback to show us how he’s customized the interior in Sea Mist Plaid fabric purchased from the Woolen Mill Store.
Jeremy is a golf pro (see his gearshift), and wanted his car to reflect his lifestyle & love of golf.
Great work, Jeremy! Come see us at the Woolen Mill Store whenever you’re struck with inspiration.
Jan 2
Here at Pendleton, we are so moved when people take the time to let us know the special ways they incorporate Pendleton into their lives. And that includes weddings!
Quite a few editorial shoots use us for wedding or engagement photos. But when we’re used as part of an actual wedding, as we were in the wedding of Zoe Fisher and Matt Johnson (photos by Heather Bayles Photography), we are incredibly proud.
Pendleton played a part in the engagement of Bob and Melba Stork. They were shopping in Pasadena, California on a spring day in 1951 when a store window with Pendleton shirts caught their attention. They looked at several patterns and decided on a red and green plaid as an engagement gift to each other.
Bob and Melba wore traditional bridal attire when they were married on October 27th, 1951, at St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Temple City, California.
After the wedding, they left for a honeymoon trip to the Grand Canyon, where they stayed in a cabin near El Tovar. Bob set up a tripod to capture a picture of them wearing their shirts as a newly married couple.
Fifty years later, their twin daughters and their husbands organized a golden wedding anniversary celebration for the Storks, their family and friends at the Grand Canyon. This photo was taken near the spot where the first photo was taken; a short distance from their honeymoon cabin.
The Storks have worn their shirts as jackets many times over the 61 years of their marriage. They have been part of travels throughout the United States, and Melba says, “(they) are as bright, fashionable and warm as they were when we purchased them 61 years ago.”
Bob and Melba Stork were married 61 years on October 27, 2012. Bob is 93, and Melba is a bit younger. They still travel, but they won’t be taking their Pendleton shirts with them anymore. They are passing them down to their granddaughter, Lauren, and her fiance, Drew, who will be married this coming February. We will count ourselves lucky to get a photo of the “kids” in these shirts.
The next wedding we’re going to show you took place last winter, when Celeste Grewe and Joshua Bond said “I do” at Camp Creek Campground in the Mt Hood National Forest. After the bridal party wended its way through a snow-carpeted forest, the ceremony took place in front of the camp kitchen for the CCC workers in 1936.
Josh and Celeste met while working at a local snowboard shop called Exit Real World (with whom we did a collaboration some years back). The mountain has played an important part in their relationship, so it was fitting that they were married at 2200 ft elevation.
Celeste had this to say; “We wanted our wedding to really reflect Oregon, and especially to give our out-of-town guests a great feel for the history of the state. Both our families raised us with Pendleton products. Pendleton has a longstanding history with Oregon and the Northwest. It was important to incorporate a traditional element into our wedding, which is where we got the blanket ceremony (plus it was really cold last February). It was also a wonderful way to ask our parents to be involved with the ceremony.”
First, the bride and groom were wrapped in Crater Lake National Park blankets by their fathers. This symbolized their separate lives. These blankets were removed and held by their maid of honor and best man. Then the mothers of the bride and groom wrapped them in a white Glacier National Park blanket to symbolize their shared future.
The Crater Lake blankets were presented to the mothers as gifts. Celeste said of the Glacier blanket, “It’s a show piece in our home.” She is happy with how the national park blankets hearken back to “…the early part of the 1900s, the national parks, and the CCC and WPA, and the 1940s time frame of the ring I inherited from my paternal grandmother.” As you watch the slideshow (photos by Mike at Powers Studios), watch for other Pendleton items on the guests and bridal party.
To all of our friends who have made Pendleton part of their weddings, we say, best wishes for the future. May your beginnings be sweet, and may your lives together be wonderful. Thanks for letting us be a part of both.
Happy New Year!
Dec 20
As the holiday nears, it’s time for a visit from Father Winter.
Father Winter is a distinctly American take on Father Christmas. His robe is cut and sewn of Pendleton wool in the Evening Star jacquard , with natural fur and feather trims. He carries a staff and bag with woodland accents and has an incredibly soft white beard. We think that he has a little more rugged mystery than the standard Santa; a sense of dark forests with snow underfoot and stars overhead.
2012’s Father Winter takes his place beside the 2011 Father Winter.
Each and every Father Winter is handmade for Pendleton by Anita Baptiste, an artist in Chandler, Arizona. Ms. Baptiste works with the rich colors of our wool to create a harmonious blend of natural elements. She’s planning a beautiful Father Winter for next year, which we will introduce this summer.
So hang those stockings and light those candles. And though Father Winter looks like he might prefer pemmican, go ahead and leave him some cookies. Some traditions never need changing.
It’s a busy week here at Pendleton Woolen Mills, but there is always time to share another photo of Nancy Hales looking terrific.
As the Portland Tribune says:
In her full-time work as director of First Stop Portland, Nancy Hales has been an unofficial ambassador to the city; now she’ll do so in another role as First Lady of Portland. She’s already started to make a fashion statement by supporting local companies. Here she wears Pendleton Woolen Mills’ Portland Collection, which she likes for its durability and classic appeal. ‘I’m trying very hard to wear Portland,’ she says.
Please check the Portland Collection blog for stores near you.
Election night is always exciting. For those of us who work at Pendleton Woolen Mills, it was especially exciting to see the blue pieced dress worn by Nancy Hales as she stood by the side of Portland’s Mayor-Elect, Charlie Hales.
This dress is one of the show-stopping pieces from the Fall 2013 line for The Portland Collection. Three Portland designers create this fashion forward boutique line for Pendleton; Rachel Turk, John Blasioli and Nathaniel Crissman. All of the garments are made in the USA. You can watch them here as they talk about the line on Good Day Oregon.
So congratulations, Mrs. Hale, and thanks for keeping it local!
Nov 9
As Veterans Day approaches, two Pendleton blankets deserve some special attention.
First, the Grateful Nation blanket honors the sacrifice of brave men and women who have defended freedom throughout the history of the United States of America.
Each colored stripe represents a service ribbon awarded to veterans of historical conflicts in which our country has engaged:
Sales of this blanket help support The Fisher House® Foundation, which provides residences near major military and VA medical centers for the families of ill or wounded service members. For several years, this blanket pattern was available as a vest. Pendleton was proud to present these vests to the living WWII veterans who were honored in Washington, DC.
Another blanket that honors a specific group of United States military veterans is The Code Talker blanket.
This design honors the crucial role played by Navajo servicemen in defending our country during World War II by developing a code that could not be cracked, based on the Navajo language.
The history of the code talkers is more riveting than any fiction. You can learn more at their official site, and at other sites that tell this fascinating story, which was told in the popular movie “Windtalkers”. This blanket was officially retired as of 2012, but the WWII Navajo Code Talkers are still alive and will be honored this Veterans Day.
They don’t have a Pendleton blanket, but the Choctaw Code Talkers of WWI will be honored along with the Navajo Code Talkers of WWII at Maxwell Air Force Base as part of November, the National American Indian Heritage Month.
And the Smithsonian will feature exhibits on the Code Talkers from both of the Great Wars. We have no word on whether or not the blanket will be included in this exhibit, but it has been featured in papers and exhibits about the Code Talkers since its introduction. That makes us happy, as these blankets have been woven in America with special pride.
We salute and thank those who fight for our country. The dedication and sacrifice of our military should be honored not just on Veterans Day, but every day.
Enjoy a guest post from our friend Greg Hatten about his further adventures with canvas and wool as he takes his wooden boat down some of the most beautiful and challenging rivers of the west.
The wild and scenic section of the Rogue River in southwestern Oregon is a national treasure. It’s a 35 mile stretch of rough and tumble river filled with extreme white water challenges, breathtaking outdoor beauty, abundant wildlife, and in the month of October – it’s filled with laughter from my favorite river rats for a few days of camping, fishing, river running, and poking fun at each other.
It’s always a slightly different group of guys – not everyone can drop out of life and into a canyon for four days and be completely cut off from work and emails, cell phones and text messages. Though the group represents a mixed bag of professions – doctors, lawyers, realtors, builders, and businessmen, work is almost never a topic for discussion. We’ve run hundreds of river miles together and spent hours around a campfire but I can’t tell you the specifics about what they do for a living or the location of their offices. On a trip like this, what you do for each other on the river is more important than what you do for others to make a living… it’s just one of the many reasons I love this annual adventure.
Gear is often a subject of discussion and sometimes derision. If you’ve got the latest camp gadget (that actually works) or the newest line of clothes from Patagonia, you’re gonna have a good campfire. If you’ve got a leaky tent, if your scotch is second-rate, or your flies are not producing fish – you’re gonna hear about it.
This year, instead of a nylon tent & down sleeping bag, I slept in a “throw-back” canvas cowboy bedroll with just a Pendleton wool camp blanket to keep me warm. When rain threatened, I put up a light-weight canvas rain fly by David Ellis strung between two of my 9’ oars. The weather forecast was for daytime temps in the low 70’s and nights to get as low as 38 degree’s – Friday showed 50% chance of rain… the campfire forecast was a heat-wave headed my direction if the nights got too cold or the canvas rain fly didn’t hold up.
One of our most seasoned river runners is fond of saying “there is no such thing as bad weather… just bad equipment”. Fortunately, the weather was good and so was my canvas and wool “equipment”. Our night-time temps never dropped below 40 degrees and the little bit of rain we got each night was perfectly repelled by the canvas rain fly over my head. I stayed dry and warm every night!
Canvas and Wool go together like Wood Boats and White Water. The “throwback” approach to camping was a perfect fit for the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue River and is the only way I’ll camp in the future. Around the campfire, canvas and wool was a “hit” and the only “heat” I caught was about the second-rate scotch I brought for this trip.
If you want to experience the authenticity of canvas and wool camping yourself, we can help.
Designer Lindsey Thornburg is a former philosophy student who grew up in Colorado and Montana. She has been working with Pendleton fabrics since 2008, when she returned from a trip to Machu Picchu and started bringing her inspirations to life with vintage Pendleton blankets from her father’s Montana home. The cloaks she makes use familiar Pendleton patterns, geometrically realigned for a completely new (and utterly stunning) effect.
Lindsey brought her work to NYC in 2008. Her signature cloaks were featured on street style blogs and the mainstream press sat up and took notice. Thornburg continued to use Pendleton fabrics for her first cloak collections, making trips across the country to personally select fabrics at the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store. “Pendleton is the American wool company making the best textiles in the game,” says Lindsey. “People are inquisitive about Pendleton. Its iconic fabrics are now seen on the streets of New York and across America.”
We recently held a preview showcase for next year’s Pendleton Home line at the Ace Hotel in NYC. We hope you like what you see…new colors, throws based on historic weaves from our rich company history, and familiar favorites like the National Park Series blankets.
And of course, more spa towels, because everyone loves the spa towels!
Aug 30
Enjoy! We are definitely worth the trip.
